1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera device having a movable optical system, and a method and a program for starting the camera device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in electronic still cameras or digital cameras, an object is picked up by an image pickup element such as a CCD or the like, and while the image is being displayed as a through image on a liquid crystal display device, the picked-up image is recorded as digital data on a recording medium such as a memory card or the like in accordance with an operation of a shutter. Accordingly, at the time of startup when the power supply of an electronic still camera is turned on for photographing, various initializing operations with respect to both of the hardware and the software, for example, such as a preparation for making data to be able to be recorded on a recording medium, a preparation for image picking-up an object, and a preparation for displaying the picked-up image, are indispensable. As a time from the power-on until when it is in a state in which photographing is available, a given starting time which is longer than that in the case of a silver salt, camera or an analog camera is required. Therefore, there is the shortcoming that the electronic still cameras or the digital cameras cannot cope with an urgent chance to press a shutter key.
Therefore, in order to make shortening of the above-described starting time to be possible, a conventional example in which a time of reading management information from an freely attachable and detachable memory card is omitted is disclosed in paragraph 0025 of Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 2002-237977.
However, in an electronic still camera, which has a movable or sinkable optical system in which a lens is housed in a camera housing during non-photographing and it is necessary to protrude the zoom lens prior to photographing, the time required for protruding the optical system accounts for most of the starting time. Therefore, even if the time of reading management information from a memory card is omitted as in the conventional document, the time accounts for extremely small percentage of the total starting time, and there is the problem that an effect on reduction in starting time has not been satisfactory yet.